BBC News Online: World: Africa

Congo volcano 'kills dozens'

Goma people were caught out by the fast-flowing lava

United Nations officials estimate that 45 people have died in the 24 hours since red-hot lava began pouring out of Mount Nyiragongo down through the eastern town of Goma and on into Lake Kivu, which straddles the Rwandan border.

And the authorities there are struggling to cope with the huge influx of people.

Sleeping in streets

The Rwandan border town of Gisenyi is crowded with vehicles and displaced people, many of whom spent Thursday night sleeping on the streets.

	Lava flow from the north cuts 50 metre-wide swathe through Goma Flow stops as it reaches Lake Kivu Part of the airport runway under lava Earth tremors continue, raising fears of further eruptions

"This is going to be a human catastrophe," said an official from a contingent of UN ceasefire observers deployed in the eastern Congolese city of more than half a million.

"We have to find them shelter, put them up in camps. There's no electricity, no running water."

UN officials estimate that up to 300,000 people were driven from their homes as molten lava swept through Goma.

The World Food Programme says it is standing by to provide any emergency supplies required.

Path of destruction

The BBC's Andrew Harding in Goma says it looks as though the town has been hit by a giant bulldozer, with the lava destroying everything in its path and setting off explosions at power plants and fuel stores.

Parts of the runway at Goma airport have disappeared beneath the smoking tide.

Rob Wilkinson, a spokesman for the charity Oxfam, which has a programme team in the area, said there are unconfirmed reports of thousands of people still trapped between lava streams inside Goma.

As dawn broke, rescuers dug out corpses from hardening lava that had engulfed entire houses.

Looting

Despite the lava, our correspondent reports that thousands of people are now beginning to return to the edges of town, some out of curiosity, others to guard their homes against looters.

A Congolese officer told the BBC's Helen Vesperini that Congolese troops had started looting in Goma, but Rwandan soldiers were trying to restrain them.

"There are some buildings still standing, but there are certainly no people around," he said.

The flow of lava is now said to have stopped after reaching Lake Kivu on the border.

But clouds of white smoke are hanging over the area and continued earth tremors are keeping alive fears of another eruption.

The 3,469-metre (11,380 foot) Nyiragongo volcano is one of eight scattered along the borders of Rwanda, Congo and Uganda, and is only about 10 kilometres (six miles) from Goma.

The region is dense with tropical forests and home to rare mountain gorillas, which inhabit the slopes of the mostly dormant volcanoes.